


put him in a box

by curiouslyfic



Category: Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 00:03:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouslyfic/pseuds/curiouslyfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lock likes Jack, Barrel knows he does, and Barrel doesn’t like it. They’re supposed to be a team, they’re supposed to stick together, and Lock isn’t doing that. Lock is growing up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	put him in a box

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Winoniel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winoniel/gifts).



> This fic made possible by the wild enabling of the chatzy lovelies and the motivation of #yulechat, with swift beta action from kinky_kneazle. Thanks for the prompt, winoniel. I had a lot of fun with these two. ♥

Oogie takes care of them. No one thinks so, but he does. Barrel knows and he knows Shock does, too, but he wonders sometimes about Lock.

Oogie takes care of them because no one else does, because no one else notices them unless they’re walking around trick-or-treating, and that’s no life for a kid. Barrel’s six and he knows that, and people think _he_ ’s dumb.

Lock likes Jack, Barrel knows he does, and Barrel doesn’t like it. They’re supposed to be a team, they’re supposed to stick together, and Lock isn’t doing that.

Lock is growing up.

And when he’s six and only eating when he scares food out of people, when they’re living in a tree over Oogie Boogie’s place, when all anyone ever wants from them is mischief, even Lock’s precious Jack, when they’re little and already Lock’s stopped being any fun sometimes, Barrel worries.

Then Jack takes Oogie Boogie away, lets his precious Sandy Claws help kill him, and Barrel’s whole life changes.

::

It’s worse when they get older, because Jack’s had his identity crisis and tried to give all of Halloweentown one, too, and it’s always there now, this sense that there’s something wrong with them for being themselves.

Suddenly, being the best trick-or-treaters in a city that lives for tricks and treating isn’t something good. Isn’t good _enough_. Barrel doesn’t understand.

::

Halloweentown runs on tricks and treats and scares, just like it always has, but it’s different now. The grown-ups don’t notice, they just slip back to how things have always been because that’s what they all know best, but it’s not that easy for Barrel.

Because if Jack could take everything away from them just because he was bored, who’s to say Jack won’t do it again?

::

“Jack says I could be a vampire someday,” Lock says and his eyes are bright the way they’re supposed to be for really clever tricks.

“Fuck Jack,” Barrel says and Shock rolls her eyes at him but Lock just stares blankly. They’re teenagers now and Jack’s still trying to remake the town to fit his own image. Barrel hates it. He thinks about pointing out that Jack is not the Mayor. Jack doesn’t give a shit about them, Jack never really has.

“Why are you so dumb?” Shock asks rhetorically, and if he was as dumb as she likes to pretend he is, he wouldn’t know that word.

“Why are you so boring?” he counters but it won’t matter, she’ll just ignore him the way she always does when he says things she doesn’t want to hear. Shock is not nice to him but she’s not nice to anyone, all fake smiles as bait for her tricks and sharp cackles when she’s got her treat. She’s no Oogie Boogie.

“Why would you say that?” Lock asks later, when Shock’s ditched them both to go hang out with the Witches.

Barrel thinks he knows what Lock is asking but he can’t be sure. “Say what?”

Lock hesitates, looks from side to side without actually looking at him. “You know. About Jack.”

Barrel’s sixteen now and staring at a future as another guy with an ax splitting his skull, lumbering around Halloweentown like he doesn’t know how people look at him. Walking around with an ax in his head is a skill, sure, but it’s not really useful.

No one ever thinks those guys can think. No one ever thinks they’re smart, that maybe there’s something there worth listening to. Barrel’s spent some time with them, the Necros, the zombies walking around with injuries that would have killed them anywhere but here. Sometimes he thinks the one thing they have going for them is that they’re too dumb to know they should just lay down and die already.

Sometimes he thinks he’d be better off. No scrounging for food if he doesn’t need to eat anymore. The only one who ever fed him regularly was Mr. Oogie Boogie Man and Barrel still misses him a lot.

So Barrel doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. Not with Lock, who’s going to tell him all over again how great Jack is and who just won’t understand.

Lock snorts at him and turns his smile sharp. “Why am I even asking you? You probably don’t even know.”

Barrel knows, he just isn’t sure how to make Lock know, too. So he puts his own mask-smile on and says, “I want Snake and Spider Stew.”

Lock stares at him again. Then Lock says, “You’re an idiot,” and “I don’t know why I bother,” like he really doesn’t.

Barrel frowns at him. “Because we’re a team,” he says helpfully, because they are. They won’t be forever, that’s been clear for years, but until it’s official, they’re still birds of a feather, aren’t they?

::

No one knows who his parents are or why they give him up, why they disappear when he’s still little, why they just don’t want him anymore. When he’s very small, Barrel thinks they did it so he’d have Lock and Shock, that maybe his parents knew he belonged with them and not with boring adults.

He hasn’t thought that in a long time.

Sometimes he wonders what his name really is, who he was supposed to be before Jack hovered over them and named all three of them in a twitch of his spindly finger. Sometimes Barrel wonders if he’d be different if he’d been the first one named, or the second. Lock likes things pinned down and Shock’s always all about the reaction and barrels are for collecting things, holding them together; he wonders sometimes if Jack had known about him then.

If it ever occurred to Jack that they wouldn’t be a matched set forever.

Probably not. Jack probably thought it was funny.

::

They still live in the tree but they don’t all fit in the bathtub together anymore. Shock’s knees are bony and they dig into Barrel’s back; Lock’s tail twitches when he’s annoyed and Barrel has to wave it out of his face. They’re growing up and Barrel hates it because it means they’re going to change, going to leave him, too, and Barrel doesn’t want to be left behind. Shock’s eighteen or so now—no one’s sure how old she is but she picks eighteen so she’s not as young as Barrel and yep, when the time comes, she’s going to make a great Witch, she’s had all this practice being horrible—and Lock’s a skinny, baffled nineteen hero-worshipping the stupid Pumpkin King, trying to spend time with the Vampires so he’ll fit in with them someday.

Lock’s not supposed to be a Vampire, Barrel’s sure; Vampires don’t have tails.

Barrel tries to tell him that but Lock doesn’t want to hear it.

::

Lock crawls into bed with him late because he’s been out with the Vampires. Barrel squirms away from him because Lock is cold and Barrel’s comfortable enough to fall asleep again if Lock doesn’t touch him. That trick’s really old and Barrel thinks they could do better.

“Hey,” Lock whispers, careful not to wake Shock in the next room. She’s mean when they bother her and Barrel thinks she’s working on her Witchy hearing. “You still up?”

“No,” Barrel answers.

Lock snorts quietly and leans over Barrel’s shoulder, pressing against Barrel’s back and breathing on his cheek. “Great. Dumbass. Guess what I did tonight?”

The only reason Barrel hasn’t shoved Lock away yet is that Lock says _dumbass_ affectionately, like it’s Barrel’s secret name or something. Barrel likes it and he hates it but he can’t bring himself to make Lock stop, not when it’s keeping Lock so close.

“I’m sleeping,” he says again, looking plainly up at Lock’s eyes, his mask-smile as flat as he can make it.

Lock’s smiling at him, grinning devilishly, but it gets weak and shaky for a moment before it flares again. “I can see that.” Barrel sees the tip of Lock’s tail twitch, waits to feel it thumping lightly against his side. Instead, he feels Lock’s nose brush against his cheek. “Go on, _guess_.”

“You tricked,” Barrel tries. It’s not right; it can’t be if Lock’s been out with the Vampires all night, but it’s the thing they do best, the only good thing Barrel can share.

Lock laughs, quiet and low. “Close,” he purrs, a distinctly Vampire tone. “So close. Want to try again?”

 _Not really_ , Barrel wants to say, but Lock’s lips brush his cheek.

Lock’s staring at him like he thinks Barrel’s prey, like he’s spent his whole night learning stupid Vampire things and now he wants to bring them home. It’s not even the scariest trick Lock’s ever pulled, watching Barrel with heat and murder in his eyes; there is no good reason it should be working.

Still, Barrel’s not even pretending to sleep anymore. He’s just staring at Lock, knowing this has to be a Vampire thing, knowing it’s only going to make him mad if he lets Lock go on, not moving anyway, just letting it happen.

Whatever _it_ is. Barrel’s still not sure.

“Guess,” Lock breathes against his cheek and Barrel’s eyes close. It clears his head a little; he can still smell the copper on Lock’s breath, the smoke and stench of Halloweentown’s streets in Lock’s hair, but the worst of the trick fades. “Come on, dumbass. Or should I show you?”

Then he nips Barrel’s cheek. Barrel gasps. He expects Lock to laugh but he doesn’t expect it to sound so good, a whole new trick that makes him want to open his eyes again.

Lock’s fingers walk Barrel’s chest like spiders, light and patient. Barrel clenches his teeth because he can’t clench his fists, Lock will notice. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you,” Lock answers. His voice sounds really strange. Not high and tight like the other Vampires yet but not like Barrel thinks it should sound, either. “Don’t you want to see my new trick, Barrel?”

“I want to sleep.” He wants Snake and Spider Stew. He wants Lock to stay _Lock_.

“I don’t think you do,” Lock tells him and he’s rolling Barrel over, slipping Barrel beneath him and covering Barrel with his body, saying, “You look hungry.”

He doesn’t mean food hungry. Barrel doesn’t want him to move. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” Lock insists and Barrel makes the mistake of looking into Lock’s eyes then. His stomach turns funny; that’s happened before, always—almost always—around Lock. “You’re always hungry,” Lock says, for a moment just like himself, grinning a little foolishly and sounding like Barrel’s best friend again. Then Barrel lets himself smile foolishly back and something happens to Lock’s face. Barrel doesn’t understand it, so probably it’s a Vampire thing. “I’m hungry, too.”

Barrel thinks it’s a spider on his neck, or maybe a snake, but it’s not. It’s Lock’s fingers petting him and it makes the strangeness in Barrel’s stomach worse. It’s not hunger, not the kind Barrel’s known his whole life, but it’s sort of familiar anyway.

“Can I have a taste, Barrel? Just one. Little. Taste.”

Barrel feels himself nod but he’s not sure what he’s nodding for. He doesn’t _want_ Lock to bite him, which is probably what Lock means, but he doesn’t want Lock to move away, either.

“Excellent,” Lock croons, and then he’s ducking his head, burying his face under the curve of Barrel’s face, just feeling it with his mouth.

Barrel’s fingers tighten on the sheets, bracing for the inevitable bite, but Lock just licks him once, twice, smacks his lips a little and nudges Barrel’s skin with his teeth. Still blunt, those teeth, which is good. Barrel’s going to _hate_ it when Lock gets fangs.

They’ve done some of this before. The being on top of each other, the squirming so it feels good, the dick-rubbing through their pyjamas, none of that is new. Barrel gets hard sometimes and Lock has forever and Lock’s already figured out how to make it better, has already showed him what to do so Shock won’t hear him. It’s still better when it’s Lock’s hand than when it’s his but it’s always pretty good.

The mouth thing, that’s new. Lock gnaws on his neck as he moves over Barrel’s body, sliding like a snake, and he’s as hot and heavy as he always is. Barrel’s going to miss that when Lock’s a Vampire, how hot he feels.

Lock lifts his head and looks at him with something Barrel wants to call surprise. “You like this?”

Yep, definitely surprise. Barrel can’t say anything, though, Barrel’s too busy making weird sounds.

Lock blinks. “You _really_ like this, huh?” Barrel isn’t stupid, Barrel isn’t going to move again until Lock does because who knows what else the Vampires taught him, but he really wants to. Lock makes a little, thoughtful sound. “It’s okay, you know. They said sometimes that happens. Can I…?”

Barrel bites his lip and nods. Then he’s got Lock’s hand sliding-pushing down the length of him, going for the hem of his pyjamas, hooking his shirt up to bare his grey-pale chest.

Barrel’s always thought Lock’s best trick was the exploding bag of bugs in Dr. Finklestein’s lab because they’d found worms and spiders everywhere for weeks and Dr. Finklestein’s creature-clone still shrieked and cried sometimes when he saw creepy-crawly things, but it’s not.

Lock’s best trick is what he’s doing now, fangless biting Barrel everywhere, smelling him slow and licking at him like Barrel’s a candy lolly. He straddles Barrel and leans forward, so close Barrel thinks he’d be leaning on Barrel’s dick if he slipped forward a little.

Lock really likes Barrel’s left nipple; he catches it between his teeth and tugs, lets go to swipe his tongue over it and makes Barrel gasp again. Barrel’s hands are on Lock’s hips clumsily and Lock’s hands are palming over Barrel’s chest and belly, moving over his ribs and teasing him terribly.

“Trick or treat,” Lock murmurs against his mouth, not quite a kiss, while his hands are holding Barrel’s hips still, thumbs stretched across Barrel’s belly frustratingly close to Barrel’s dick. Barrel makes an impatient sound. Lock nips his lower lip and sucks it hard for a second before he lets it go. “Shh, don’t wake her up. Just answer the question.”

Barrel blinks up at him, tries to touch Lock’s ass and gets an annoyed swat of Lock’s tail for his trouble.

“Trick. Or. Treat.” Lock repeats.

“Which one gets me laid?” The right answer’s _trick_ , it’s always trick, but he doesn’t want a scare right now. He wants Lock to touch him or something, even if it’s just crawling off him so Barrel can take care of himself.

“Fucking dumbass,” Lock says but he’s laughing and happy and tricky again. He’s leaning forward that little bit and kissing-gnawing-sucking at Barrel’s mouth, pushing down on Barrel’s dick.

Barrel’s hips move all on their own and Lock’s do, too, jerking into him to knock their dicks together. Lock’s tugging his pants down so his cock’s out, hard and vulnerable, and the way Lock’s touching it makes Barrel crazy to touch back, show Lock how it’s supposed to be.

Because Lock is a wicked tease and has been for as long as Barrel’s known him and sometimes Barrel can’t tell if the teasing is trick or treat or both.

Barrel doesn’t realize until after Lock’s making space between them that he’s been protesting Lock’s pants; Lock licks Barrel’s lip again and jerks his dick just this side of rough, says, “Yeah, come on, touch it, me, too.”

Barrel doesn’t need to hear that twice.

Lock’s cock is long and thin, just like him, and Barrel’s always seems short and chubby in Lock’s hand, but Lock doesn’t seem to mind. They’re not that different, though, when Lock’s got his hand around both of them and he’s encouraging Barrel to wrap his hand there, too, so they can do this together; they both fit okay and Lock’s isn’t really that much longer.

It gets wet and messy in their hands because they’re both leaking already and fucking into their hands, breathing hard and pushing harder. Barrel’s sure the best trick Lock has is this one right here but he knows it’s not something they can take to the rest of Halloweentown and he really doesn’t want to share. Not even with Shock, who wouldn’t appreciate either of them, anyway.

Lock tells him how good he’s getting at this in rough, choppy words, more breath than sound but right in Barrel’s ear, timed to match the movement of their hands. It feels like it did that time in their bathtub, Lock pulling Barrel into his lap to make room and letting the jolt of the footsteps rock them together while Lock’s tail toyed with Barrel’s butt, flicking hard like a switch and brushing spider-soft. Not quite like Lock curling up behind him in bed, rubbing his dick against Barrel’s ass and reaching around to jerk Barrel’s dick in his pyjamas, not quite that overwhelming and comfortable, more the unfamiliar heat and fear of that time in the bathtub, the cool prickles of excitement of the very best sort of scare.

Barrel fucking loves it.

He comes with Lock hovering over him and just breathing rough and heavy on him, Lock’s fingers clutching his around their slick and messy dicks, Barrel clutching Lock’s neck to keep his head where it is. It hits him harsh and brutal, almost hurts it’s so good, and Lock doesn’t let him slow down at all to enjoy it.

When Lock comes a moment later, he rests his long forehead against Barrel’s and huffs out a quiet curse, shudders as he stripes come on Barrel’s belly.

It takes Lock a little while to figure out he should move away—Barrel never makes him, it’s just something Lock always does and Barrel won’t argue—and once he can move again, he arches his back and stretches, wipes himself cleanish with the sheet and tucks his dick away.

He’s not sure if the wet patch on his neck is spit or blood, not even when he pokes at it; it doesn’t hurt, just feels warm and raw, but he’s heard sometimes Vampire bites don’t. Shock said, anyway, and it’s not like Lock ever tells him anything.

Lock just shows him tricks.

And Barrel hates it sometimes, hates thinking about what Lock’s going to be someday and how Barrel can’t be it with him, but he doesn’t hate it enough to push Lock away.

::

The night Lock puts his tail between Barrel’s naked butt cheeks, presses the tip of it against Barrel’s asshole with intent, Barrel expects to feel fangs in the kiss. Expects to hear Lock’s leaving for good soon, that he’s only doing this now because he won’t be around to do it later. Barrel’s nineteen now and Lock’s almost twenty-one and that seems like a good age to be a Vampire but too early to be the walking wounded.

It’s getting even harder to let go, though Barrel’s been trying.

“Is this okay?” Lock asks and he sounds nervous, he’s not smiling at all now, just watching Barrel wide-eyed and holding himself carefully.

“Yeah,” Barrel manages when he can get actual words out of his thick, dry throat. “Yeah, just do it.”

Lock nods and his tail-tip presses in a little more, pushes inside because Barrel can’t keep it out with the slick Lock’s put on it. It’s not Lock’s dick yet but it will be, Barrel’s sure, maybe even tonight, and it feels really weird but not in a bad way.

Barrel wonders if Lock’s going to like it when Barrel’s got his mortal wound, if Lock’s going to lick the edges of it while they do this or if Lock’s going to leave him behind entirely, find himself another Vampire or a Witch or something. None of the zombies Barrel knows have anyone like this, but at least a few of them have someone to follow mindlessly.

He doesn’t want to be like that with Lock but he’s not sure he can avoid it. Maybe…maybe it’ll be okay. _Maybe_.

He wonders if Lock’s bite could be his wound. He’d be okay with that, he thinks, but maybe not yet. Maybe they can wait until he’s twenty-one, too, so they can be the same age forever, and he can hold Lock’s little parasol for the sun and Lock can look after him and they won’t be hungry anymore.

He could be all right with that. Probably. If Lock is.

Lock’s tail pushes in deeper and Barrel shudders for him, arches his neck and groans encouragement. Lock kisses his neck the way he has since the fangs came in, carefully covering them with his own lips and flicking his tongue over Barrel’s pulse.

“No,” Lock says thickly, words pushed against his skin. “You are not for biting.”

Barrel shudders again at that, disquieted. “I could be.”

“Shh, no, you couldn’t,” Lock says and he’s frowning, easing his tail back like he means to pull out. Barrel tightens and clenches to keep him there; Lock squeezes his eyes and swears.

It’s a really good thing Shock’s already taken off to live with the Witches because she’d be so pissed at the noise they’re going to make tonight. Barrel thinks maybe there’s going to be yelling.

“No, really, it’s okay,” Barrel says quickly, to get the edge of scary off Lock’s face. “It’s going to happen anyway. Might as well be you.”

That just makes the scary worse, though. “What?” Lock’s mouth moves but he doesn’t say anything. Then he says, “What?” again.

Barrel gives him a mask-smile, then a real one so Lock knows it’s okay. Lock pulls away again; his tail slips out and everything, and then Barrel feels empty and kind of cold. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Explain,” Lock orders when he’s scrambled back to kneel on the bed. He folds his arms across his chest and for a second, he looks just as stubborn and devilish as Barrel remembers from when they were kids. “Barrel, what the hell?”

So Barrel has to explain about the plan and the more he says, the grimmer Lock looks. By the time he’s explaining about how he’ll carry the parasol if Lock needs it, Lock looks disgusted. So maybe no sex, then, and maybe Lock’s leaving early. Barrel doesn’t like it but he doesn’t know where he went wrong.

“You’re a dumbass,” Lock decides when Barrel’s done talking.

“ _You’re_ a dumbass,” Barrel counters automatically, stung.

Lock looks at him like Barrel’s a new trick, a trap from Dr. Finklestein. “You’re not going to be a zombie. Idiot.”

Barrel feels his face settling into the cold, flat anger he’s only really used a few times before. The nightstand rattles. Something small shrieks and several unseen things scurry away. All the lights in the room wink out. Lock blinks at him, shakes his head once like he needs to clear it, then looks back warily. “No, I’m going to be a Witch,” he snaps. “What else am I going to be?”

Lock glances around pointedly, follows the sound of scurrying and the blotched dark that used to be candlelight, lets his gaze linger on the nightstand before he turns his attention back on Barrel. “You really don’t know?” Then Barrel’s not sure who Lock’s talking to, but he’s not sure it’s _him_. “Unbelievable. Do you just not _notice_? You must. How could you miss a thing like that?”

Barrel doesn’t like the fact that Lock’s talking about things Barrel’s apparently supposed to know, because he doesn’t and if Lock thinks it’s so _obvious_ , maybe he should have said something sooner. “Easily,” he counters in a voice he doesn’t recognize as his own.

Lock’s shaking his head and making that weird, puzzled face again, but he stops to watch Barrel’s face. “Jack said he’d talk to you. He said…He was supposed to talk to you about this _last year_. What happened?”

“Fuck Jack,” Barrel says, annoyed. The shadows around them grow and shrink, stretch and shift. It’s not like Lock doesn’t know how Barrel feels about the fucking Pumpkin King.

“Oogie,” Lock says quickly, reaching out to hold Barrel’s face in his hands. “You’re going to be Oogie, Barrel. What else could you be?” Then Lock’s watching him hopeful and expectant, grinning at him and biting the edge of his own lip, waiting for something important.

“Oogie,” Barrel repeats carefully, just for confirmation. Lock nods and ducks his head a little. “Me, Mr. Oogie Boogie Man?”

It sounds pretty good.

“Dunno how you missed it but you kind of already are,” Lock adds and whatever he sees in Barrel’s face then gets Barrel kissed _a lot_.

Fun as it is to have Lock’s tail pushing into him, it’s more fun still with Lock’s dick, watching Lock’s face as that tail pushes into _Lock_. Barrel’s only still learning and he has a long way to go before he’s going to be in any shape to really start getting under Jack’s bones but as maybe-Oogie Boogie powers go, that’s not a bad way to start.

::

Jack names the next set of trick-or-treaters Snap, Crackle, and Pop, because Jack’s a relentless do-gooder with an inflated sense of his own self-importance. It’s only a few weeks before Barrel takes them in and sets the three of them up in the treehouse he’d shared with Lock and Shock. The first thing he does is introduce himself. The second is ask them to pick better names for themselves.

While they’re thinking it over, he heads downstairs to put on the Snake and Spider Stew.

And when Lock shows up after dark, that familiar copper taste in his kiss and that wicked gleam of tease in his eyes, Barrel introduces him to the team.

~f~


End file.
